Dry River
by bisexualcharliedavis
Summary: Charlie wasn't happy about having to hold onto and be led by another person, but he accepted it for now. He got the feeling he was going to be doing a lot more accepting in the coming months.


/Chapter one of two, warnings: poisioning, blindness. Enjoy~Leave a review if you liked it :-)

It went dark all of a sudden, that's the best way he can describe it. He scrambled to protect his eyes from the white powder but it was all for moot. His legs collapsed under him as he fell, he's sort of aware that someone is screaming and they would have to be in a lot of pain because it's so loud. He hadn't even realized it but after he fell, someone, Blake, most likely had scooped him against their chest. When he does realize, in the screaming and the chaos, Charlie grabs for someone to hold on to, and his desperate fingers find Blake's arm and his fingers struggle to grip onto it from their almost sideways position.

Whoever is screaming is still making a lot of noise and amongst the darkness and the confusion, Blake is desperately attempting to hush someone, probably the screamer. He realizes that it's him screaming so loudly. He tries to clamp his mouth shut to stop the noise because frankly its annoying him as well. Distantly, he wonders why he can think so clearly but not stop the screaming or feel what he was apparently screaming about.

He's not able to stop the screaming and his voice breaks suddenly, and all that's coming out of his throat are breathy moan sort of noises that are possibly more annoying then the screaming had been. Blake is yelling now, or, he was always yelling and Charlie had been too preoccupied with the screaming to notice but he's yelling for water, Charlie can't pick up much else because he's just now picking up on the burning sensation in his eyes and Blake is moving again. Clutching him close and pinning his arms by his sides and trying at the same time to stop him rubbing his face on something.

His fingers occasionally spasm in their grip on Blake's arm, but after a few more moments, he just sort of stops. He pants softly, and remains passive in Blake's arms, unable to find the ability to continue panicking. Blake's calming arm wrapped tightly around him probably have something to do with it as well, he thinks, as Blake adjusts his tight grip. "Just keep still I know it hurts." Blake said, as his eyes water over and tears streak his cheeks. The burning feeling is almost sort of cold now, and then suddenly, in the darkness, there's a splash of water he's not expecting and he gasps against the stream of water on his face and in his eyes. "There's a good lad." Blake said, softly enough only Charlie could hear it without being condescending to him. Charlie has never been called Lad without the undertones so he says nothing, less then nothing even in reply as the water runs down his face and onto Blake's suit. Somehow, being clutched against Blake's waist coat is more comforting then anything else.

Once Blake apparently deems it safe enough, Charlie finds himself lifted up into his arms, with his own still pinned firmly against his sides. Blake carries him, and he cant make up his mind if he's comforted or humiliated over the stinging in his eyes. His legs hang uselessly and he's unable to muster up the strength to do as much as adjust himself so the collar of his shirt was no longer attempting to suffocate him. His face feels hot, too hot, even. He clutches for Blake's sleeve again when he is lay down on a stretcher. Blake is yelling again, but moves his hand to cover Charlie's when he stubbornly refuses to let go because he can't see anything and he doesn't want to be alone in the dark. He may be embarrassed later, but for now, he just wanted to cry.

The hand on top of his is as comforting as it can be when he hears the snip of scissors that are making quick work of his very expensive police blazer and shirt. Air is starting to come with a struggle, as if his ribs are collapsing in on him. His gasps must reach Blake's ears because the grip on his hand becomes tighter and it's followed by the gently spoken "It's alright. Charlie's grip starts to spasm out of his control again. He tries to speak and ask what the hell is going on, but Blake tells him to save his breath. He feels the cold on his chest as they attack his singlet sniping that away from him as well. Blake tries to comfort him and presses his hand up against his as well as he can as Charlie refuses to release his sleeve even for a more comforting hand hold. Lying almost naked in front of Blake had not been on todays agenda.

There's water in his eyes again as they go about irrigating them, clearing them of the poison that probably still lingered. It occurs to him that Blake has been talking this whole time but he just hadn't been able to hear it. When he does actually try to listen, he realizes that Blake was swapping between comforting him, and barking orders to the people in the ambulance. The words hardly register to Charlie as Blake waits for his spasaming hands to loosen enough that he can pry it free from his sleeve and to Charlie it makes perfect sense. He's never been able to catch a break in his whole life, why should he be allowed to keep this comfort either? Blake probably has better things to do then hold his hand anyway.

Then something better then clutching madly at Blake's sleeve happens. Both of Blake's significantly warmer hands wrap around his cool ones. He turns the unresisting palms up to see them, and makes a comment about the colour to the people that were presumably ambulance attendants. He's taking in less and less air with every breath, and after a moment, Blake is carefully adjusting his grip on Charlie's hand, so that he can hold it closer to himself. He thinks, distantly, that it is a long trip to the hospital.

…

The next few hours are little more then a blurr in his memory that even his best attempts cannot unlock. He kind of remember the arrival at hospital. People yelling. He distinctly recalls his hands spasaming frantically the whole way into the building. Blake, for what it's worth, doesn't let go.

He is sort of aware of his being showered, Blake explains it all to him but he's not really paying attention. He's asleep by the time he is redressed in hospital issue pajamas and laid down on the bed. Blake later explains to him that they flushed his eyes out several times with water before taping them shut in the hopes that they would heal. It was really anyone's guess if they would or not.

…

He's not really awake awake for three further days. Blake insisted on keeping him sedated least he should panic. But once he was allowed to fully come out of it he noticed several things, one, it was dark. He shifted slightly and tried to move one hand towards his eyes, only to find it restrained. He doesn't spend too long thinking about it and goes back to sleep.

The next time he is awake, it's still dark and he can feel something pulling slightly at his cheeks. He attempts again to move his arm to find it restrained. As soon as he tugs lightly on the bond, testing it, there is another hand on top of his and a gentle  
"Easy, Charlie." He stills his hand slightly and pauses to identify the voice. "Can you count to ten?"He spends a moment finding his voice.  
"One, two, three, four, five, five...No, just one five, six, seven eight, nine ten."

"Very good." The voice says,"Do you know where you are?"

"Ballarat." It's croaky and slightly damaged but the words come out and that's enough for him.

"Do you know where in Ballarat?" He tries to think,  
"Um..." He replies. There's a slight rustling and then

"Do you know who I am?" Charlie shakes his head slightly.  
"I'm Doctor Blake, you remember now?" Charlie nods his head now, but feels drained.  
"Do you remember what happened?"  
"No..." He said, softly.

"No you don't remember or no you're too tired to tell me?" Charlie turns his head away from the voice, who chuckles slightly.

"Alright, go back to sleep." He said, patting Charlie's hand gently. Charlie does without hesitation.

…

He feels better the next time he's awake. His hand is still pinned down, however. His other hand is also pinned down. But when he tries to pull again and break free, the hand is back on top of his.  
"Don't do that, it's for your own good." The voice, Doctor Blake, said kindly.

"They're m'hands..." He mumbled.

"I know, but if I let them out, then you might forget and try and take the gauze off your eyes." he said, softly, seemed like he was always talking softly. Charlie sighs.

"'M'hungry..." He said, after a moment. "'n thirsty."  
"That I can fix." Blake said, releasing Charlie's hand and standing. After a moment, there was a prod at his lips from a straw. "Open, and then small sips." Blake instructs softly. Charlie does, and clamps hi teeth on the straw, before remembering that, no, he wasn't meant to bite the straw and releasing it from his teeth. After a second, he sucks on the straw and was rewarded with the water from the cup. He drinks quickly until Blake moves it away. He made a small mournful noise at his loss.

"You have to sip it." Blake chided softly. He put the cup down somewhere. Charlie sighs softly as Blake moves away again, and sits down next to him.  
"M'hungry." Charlie repeats, in case Blake had missed it before.  
"I know." Blake said, patting his hand, "But you have a feeding tube here." He said, gently touching the skin around Charlie's nose. Charlie notices it for the first time, and makes another small noise.

"So one of the nurses will be in soon and you can eat." Charlie made a soft sighing sound and turned his head away again, effectively ending the conversation. Blake chuckled, and smoothed the blankets over Charlie's chest.

…

Blake closed the door to Charlie's room and moved down the hall to sit next to Lawson on a bench in the hallway.  
"So?"  
"Well, he's confused, but that's expected. And stubborn. He'll only talk to me in his terms." Blake chuckled, but quickly became solemn again. "Any word from his family?"

Lawson shakes his head no. "I got in contact with his mother but she didn't want anything to do with him."  
"What? Why not?" Lawson sighed softly.  
"I really can't tell." He sighed, "Still, he wouldn't be the first person to have a bad relationship with his mother." He said. "He said something about brothers to me once but I haven't got one of them yet." Blake sighs and nods.

"Are his eyes going to heal?" Lawson asks, after a moment. Blake bites down on his bottom lip for a moment before looking up at him.

"I don't know, but I would say it's unlikely that he'll ever be able to see much more then the difference between light and dark." Lawson sighs again, but neither of them really know what to say.

…

Charlie wakes up with a sore throat. He knows that it's from the tube rubbing on the back of his throat, and would probably commit murder for a glass of water. He tests to see if his hands are still bound, and unsurprisingly, they are. He groans audibly at this, and then feels the comfortingly familiar feeling of a hand pressing over the top of his.  
"Are you thirsty?" He nods. Blake gently probes at his lips again with the straw. He doesn't clamp his jaw down on it this time, however. After drinking, he feels slightly more like a human being, and slightly more willing to talk with Blake.

"How do you feel?" Blake asks, in careful, gentle tones. Charlie is unwilling to partake in small talk, however and asks the question on his mind.

"When can I go home?" There's an awkward pause, which is then followed by the gentle

"We called your mother..And she told us that you should stay here." Charlie looks away from Blake again. Blake tightens his grip. "But, I spoke with Jean, and when you're feeling better, she agrees you can stay with us." This does little to comfort him as he remains turned away.

"When will I be able to see again?" he asks softly. Blake doesn't answer right away and he's greeted by Charlie's soft "Oh God."

Blake spends several minutes holding his hands, but Charlie's soft crying continues. Blake undoes the cloth holding his hands to the bed, and then sits him up in a hug. Charlie does nothing to hug back or even indicate to Blake that he understood that something had changed. But then again maybe he didn't have too.

It doesn't take long, however, for Charlie to cry himself to sleep, and after he does, Blake lays him back on the bed, and changes out the bandages on his eyes. Blake would be lying if he didn't feel a sadness himself.

…

If Blake didn't know any better, he might think that Charlie didn't care about getting better. Over the next week, every time he came in, Charlie purposely shut himself off from the rest of the world in true ice cold police man fashion. He sighs softly as Charlie folded his arms tightly around his chest when Blake took a seat on the chair next to his bed.

"How long are you going to keep acting like this?" He asked, casually. Charlie huffed slightly but didn't offer Blake any tangible answer. There's a pause, and then Blake settled back in his chair the way that he always did. He's come in every day since Charlie arrive, barely leaving for the times he needed to change eat and shower. He wanted to comfort the clearly distraught sergeant, but Charlie was totally resistant to the idea of anyone approaching him or touching him outside the times where it was totally necessary for his survival.

The nose tube has gone now that Charlie can be trusted to eat on his own, but Charlie hadn't talked to him at all since Blake told him that his mother wasn't coming to see him. He knew everyone dealt with trauma differently, but it would be nice if Charlie could even being to start trying to heal and return to his life. It just seemed as though he wanted to stay here and rot. Blake crossed one of his legs over the other, and settled back in his chair, deciding to be ready for when Charlie was ready to speak with him.

He just wanted to be left alone, was that really too much to ask? Charlie rolled onto his side and tugged his knees up to his chin, keeping his body closed off and away from Blake, who for whatever reason was still here and refused to just leave him here alone to sulk. It was pretty clear now that just ignoring him was not going to get him to leave. Without uncurling or looking at him he spoke up, voice slightly rusty from disuse. "Why are you still here?" There's a pause, and what he identifies as clothing rustling and an unidentifiable slightly scratchy noise.  
"Why would I leave?"  
"Don't answer my question with another question." Charlie replied grimly. Blake chuckles.  
"Well, you're not in good health and I'm a doctor."

"I'm in a hospital full of doctors and nurses."  
"That's true. But I was there with you when the accident happened and I saw what happened. I supposes I might feel an emotional investment in your recovery."

"I see." Charlie replied, even though he didn't really see at all.

"Maybe," Blake started, "Maybe you're my friend I and I want too be here to help you?"  
"We aren't friends." Charlie told him coldly.  
"Alright. We're co workers." Blake said, quickly, "And I want to help you." Charlie pulled himself into a tighter little ball.

Blake sighed softly and sat back in his chair, keeping himself open, not sure if it would really help or not. He thought back to when they had been in the ambulance, and Charlie's desperate grip on his suit jacket as if he were pleading Blake to not let him go. Charlie however, seems to be done talking for the day, and doesn't reply to anything else Blake says to him. It's perhaps the first step, the tiniest baby step, but it's a start and Blake is happy with that.

…

"You can't just live in hospital for ever." Charlie knew this fully well but he just didn't know where he was going to stay once he left the hospital. He grunted softly in reply. Blake sighed softly and sat back down in his chair. "It's been three weeks Charlie. You're healed enough to come home."  
"She doesn't want me there." He said, softly. He's barely gotten up out of bed the last three weeks. Mostly because every time he did get up, Blake hovered just behind him just in case something happened and Charlie might need his help. But he can't neglect his body forever because that would have Blake doing far worse then the annoying but mostly harmless hovering. Admittedly, he did appreciate the help at times, standing in the middle of a room with no idea of what was in front of him was daunting.

"You don't have too. I said you were coming home with me, remember?"  
"Yeah. You said that." Charlie replies, "But I never agreed to it." Blake scoffed slightly and Charlie hears the familliar creak of the chair as Blake folded one leg over the other.  
"I know." Blake replied, "But I thought that you might." Charlie scoffed, but didn't uncurl himself.

"No."

"Why not, may I ask?"  
"I don't want to." He didn't want Blake to be so kind to him, he didn't want Blake's help and he didn't want to be Blake's friend. He just wanted to be left alone.

"Well the hospital needs this room free so if you won't walk with me, then I'll have to carry you." Blake said in such a way that Charlie did not need to be told that he wasn't joking. "I had Lawson bring you some clothes to change into." he said, as if that might change Charlie's mind. He guessed that it was better to leave on his own terms then Blakes so he uncurls and sits up slowly. He hesitantly swings his legs over to the end of the bed, and then stops.

"Thank you." Blake said, after a moment. Charlie holds his hand out for his clothes, but accepts Blake's help without complaint when it came to changing and putting them on. He also accepted Blake's help off the bed. He paused when Blake handed him his shoes, he felt along the front of his shoes for his laces, he realized, rather daungtingly that he had no idea how to undo the laces and then put them on. Sitting there, on the bed in the hospital, he's mostly been able to avoid crying so far (not counting his initial slip up), but it was getting harder. His eyes were still covered by the patches trying to salvage anything useful from them, but that doesn't stop him feeling the wetness of his tears on the gauze. He almost manages to disguise the sob, so very close, but not quite. He almost hiccups, and he hears the swishing of fabric as Blake turns.

"Charlie?" He asks, softly. "What's wrong?" He asked, alarm filtering into his usually controlled voice. Charlie tosses his shoes off the ends of his knees and tightly wounds his finger together.  
"Nothing." he said, softly.

"Doesn't look much like nothing." Blake said, picking up the shoes from the floor and untieing the laces carefully. "What's wrong?"Charlie felt like the true weight of what had happened had fallen on to.

"I'm never going to wear those shoes to work with my police uniform ever again." he said, softly. "I'm never going to see anything." he said, softly, "Why me?" He asked, "What did I do to deserve this?" He implored, "I'm a good person. I'm a police officer, I save people." he said, reaching for his eyes and then stopping halfway up his face when he remembered the gauze pads on his eyes. His hand fell back down to his lap and he started to actually sob. Blake set the shoes down next to him on the bed and pulled him into a hug. Charlie didn't return it, but he didn't push Blake away either. He cried for almost a full minute before Blake tried to comfort him.

"But you're alive, aren't you?" He asked, softly. "You lived though inhaling cyanide." Blake murmured. "I've seen men twice as big as you fall from half as much poison." He said, attempting to comfort him. It didn't seem to help. Charlie continued shaking in his arms. When Lawson stuck his head into the room to collect the air of them and drive them back to Blake's house he raised an eyebrow, but left as quietly as he'd entered.

"Things are going to be alright." Blake promised, as Charlie was finally able to stop crying. He wiped at his eye slightly and stiffed another sob. He didn't think it would.

…

He clung close to Blake as they made their way out of the car and towards the house. He had is arms wrapped tightly around Blake's left arm, following just behind him as they made their way to the house. Charlie wasn't happy about having to hold onto and be led by another person, but he accepted it for now. He got the feeling he was going to be doing a lot more accepting in the coming months. He can hear Lawson trailing behind them up into the house. Blake has to stop and ensure that Charlie doesn't trip up the stairs and they nearly make it, Charlie has never held onto someone so tight before in his life.

After actually making it into the building, Charlie realizes he's holding onto Blake so tightly that his knuckles hurt. He quickly lets his arm go, but Blake presses his hands back around his upper arm so he could lead Charlie into the safety of the living room without him injuring himself. After a moment or so of standing, Charlie feels around and lowers himself onto the couch. Blake says something about tea, and leaves him alone with Lawson.

"How are you feeling?" The older man asks calmly. Charlie in reply gives a slight shurgs and picks away at his fingernails. Apparently one did not need to be able to see his cuticles to decide that they had to go. Admittedly, his nails were quite long from him not tending to them while in the hospital.

"You are going to have to start talking again at some point." Lawson unhelpfully reminds him. Charlie stifles a sigh and pauses his picking to turn his head towards Lawson, and pause, before reply.  
"Well quite frankly, Sir, I feel like shit." He hears Lawson stifle a slight chuckle.  
"Is that so, Constable?"  
"It is." He grumbles, virtually inaudible and went back to focusing his efforts on picking at his nails. Lawson shuffles slightly in place and doesn't address Charlie again until Blake returns, setting two cups of tea down while Mattie and Jean bring out the remaining cups. He claim a seat on the couch next to Charlie, who stills, before resuming for about six seconds before Blake puts a hand over his and insistently presses a cup of tea into his hands, which he accepts.

He listens to everyone else talk, clearly having decided to keep things as normal as they could. He could feel eyes on him, however. He takes a long sip of tea, and prepares himself for the future.


End file.
